Katniss and Peeta go to IKEA
by MockingJayFlyingFree
Summary: The title says it all, really.


_**Ever been to IKEA with your significant other? This is what it's like for at least one of you.**_

_**Thank you to Lbug84 for betaing!**_

_**Written for Prompts in Panem, round six - "yellow".**_

* * *

"This is grounds for divorce," I mutter under my breath. Unfortunately, Peeta hears me.

"We're not married." He puts his arm around my waist, giving me a kiss on the top of my head.

No, we're not. But, as of today, we are officially living together. I've never lived with a boyfriend before, and I'm terrified. I can't believe I let him talk me into this in the first place. I mean, we were fine, right? My place, his place. I don't feel like cleaning? Let's sleep at Peeta's place for a few nights. Party in his building? We're spending the weekend at my place.

But now that we are going to live in _our_ place, we can't do that anymore.

Tonight is our first night in _our_ new apartment. But first, we have to buy all the stuff that we somehow, inexplicably, do not own. We are combining two apartments, and I thought we would have everything we need. But, once we got the keys to our new place we (well, mostly Peeta) ended up realizing that we _need_ lots of new stuff.

In fact, we (Peeta) have a whole list. And we can get it all in one place.

I see the huge yellow and blue warehouse through the car window. The closer we get, the uglier it looks. "What's with the colors?" I ask him. "I mean, I get the blue. Blue is a nice color. But _yellow_? Who even _likes_ that color?"

"Katniss, blue and yellow are the colors of the Swedish flag," he says patiently, sounding like he's explaining something to a child.

"I do know that," I say, irritated.

He chuckles. "You want to know who likes yellow? _I_ really like it, okay? It's the color of dandelions, not to mention IKEA. What's not to love?"

"It's the color of a weed _and_ hell on Earth!"

"You're always so the glass is half empty, Katniss."

I roll my eyes.

When we get inside, it takes roughly five seconds for me to feel like I'm going to suffocate. There are people _everywhere_. Everywhere I look, there's a crying child. And if they're not crying, they are laughing hysterically or running after each other while screaming loudly, while their parents scrabble down Scandinavian-sounding furniture names and ridiculously long number codes with a tiny pencil.

"Look at this!" Peeta says, excited. "Look at that Söderhamn!"

"Look at the _what_?" I ask him. He points to a light blue arm chair. "Why can't they give their shit names that I can pronounce?" I groan. "I don't want a chair that has a name that has weird letters, like that O with two dots over it. Or anything with two consonants together that shouldn't be. We need to find something else." I know it's childish. I don't care.

I point to another chair. "Stockholm. Now that's better."

"Oh, it comes in yellow, too. Good choice, Katniss."

I instantly regret pushing him in the direction of that stupid Stockholm chair. "Why don't we go check out the kitchen tables first? We can think about the armchairs and go back later." Hopefully he'll have forgotten about that awful chair by them. I'm sure as hell never having a _yellow_ armchair in my apartment.

Peeta and I are different from the vast majority of the other customers. Most of them are couples – and invariably, there's a woman leading the way, the expression on her face a variation along the axis from ecstatic to deeply concentrated. A disturbingly high proportion of them seem to be pregnant. I hope this won't give Peeta any ideas. In contrast, their better halves walk two steps behind their significant others as if they are on an invisible leash, which I suppose they are. The men all have the same pained expressions on their faces, similar to an abused Cocker Spaniel who is sitting outside in the pouring rain. They are also all carrying the ugly, yellow bags that become progressively fuller of stuff (that you didn't know you _needed_ until you saw it) the closer you get to the exit.

But Peeta and I? We're not like the rest.

"You're like a woman," I mumble, as I pretend to test one of the beds. We don't really need a new bed, but my feet really need a break.

"What do you mean?" Peeta says, as he checks the list of measurements that he's taken of our new home.

"You love it here, don't you?" I accuse.

He smiles and sits down next to me on the bed. "I love the idea that we're going to build a home together," he says, running his index finger lightly over my lips. "When I leave work, I can say to my colleagues that I'm going _home_ to my girlfriend. I'm going to fall asleep with you in my arms every night, and wake up next to you every morning."

He's so perfect. What did I do to deserve Peeta? I feel momentarily guilty for being such a pain in the ass all day. He pulls me closer. Our lips meet, and I sigh into his mouth as I feel my body begins to respond to him. The kiss deepens as I feel his hand trail up under my shirt, along my spine. He shifts his body against mine, propelling us back onto the bed that's surprisingly comfortable. I feel his growing erection pressed against my side and my heart races as I moan quietly into his mouth. Maybe IKEA isn't so bad after all...

"Excuse me?"

Who's talking? And who cares? Peeta certainly doesn't seem to. His hand travels across my stomach.

"Excuse me!" The same annoying voice repeats, more insistently this time.

I tear my mouth away from Peeta's lips. I have to blink a few times before I can focus on whoever was talking to us. It's a young woman. She's blond and gorgeous and I bet she's Swedish.

"I have to ask you to wait until you get home to finish _whatever_ it is that you're doing," the woman says. "There are children in this warehouse."

Her name plate says "Glimmer." What kind of name is that?

Peeta turns on his charm. He smiles at her, cocking his head. "I'm sorry, Miss… Glimmer." If he thinks her name is as ridiculous as I do, he doesn't show it. "It won't happen again, I promise. We just got a bit carried away because we are so happy that we are going to decorate our very first home together."

I roll my eyes and check out the tag on the edge of the bed for the name. _FJELL_. Figures.

"You're not exactly the first couple I've caught making out in the bedroom section," Glimmer says, her voice somewhat more friendly now. Peeta's charm has obviously worked. "Do you need any help finding anything for your new bedroom?"

"No, thank you, we're good," I quickly say, before Peeta has the chance to object. I take his hand and pull him after me. "Let's look at the armchairs again."

I'm in a more agreeable mood after making out in that bed, but after two more hours, I am _done_. Peeta leads us to the cafeteria, tells me to sit down at the table and relax, and he'll get in line and buy us some food. A few minutes later, he's back with… Swedish meatballs and fake Coke. My scowl does not go unnoticed. "I promise you, these taste much better than they look."

The two neighboring tables are occupied by families with a myriad of children between them, and at least four of them are screaming at the top of their lungs at any given time. Needless to say, we don't waste more time eating than we have to. The meatballs are actually pretty good, but I won't taste the fake Coke on principle.

The ground floor is its own kind of torture. With its endless number of items Peeta insists upon purchasing, it's actually even worse than the furniture section upstairs, simply because there are so _many_ things that I have to form an opinion on. And ultimately, my meaning doesn't count anyway. "But it's so _cheap_, Katniss!"

It takes us another half hour to get through the maze of the ground floor. At this point, I have completely given up on life. I feel a pounding headache coming on, too. "Bar codes facing forward, Katniss!" Peeta says, cheery as ever. I don't know how he does it. Whatever pleasant mood I managed while we were shopping is all but gone now. We end up getting the Stockholm. Peeta insists on getting a laptop stand called Vittsjö for himself, but he promises he'll never call it by name. I let him locate the disturbingly high number of brown cardboard boxes (were there really that many items on our shopping list?) from the ground pallets, and simply follow him with the trolley. It's probably the only way I can avoid having a public breakdown at this point, much like the toddler who's now lying on the floor in front of me, kicking and screaming.

Going to IKEA is very effective birth control. For me, anyway. I'm not so sure about Peeta.

I look at the mountain of stuff on the trolley. "How are we going to get all this into our car?"

"It will be alright, Katniss, don't worry."

When it's finally our turn to pay, I have a hard time keeping a straight face when another too gorgeous IKEA employee (Cashmere? Her _name_ is Cashmere? What is wrong with this place?) says: "That will be 905.45 please." She gives Peeta a flirtatious smile and completely ignores me.

Nine hundred bucks. NINE HUNDRED BUCKS. I bet it's all because of all that "but it's so _cheap_, Katniss" crap Peeta insisted that we buy. I grit my teeth and swipe my credit card while I think about the discussion we're going to have about finances later.

This is definitely grounds for divorce. No wonder Johanna couldn't stop laughing when I told her Peeta and I were moving in together.

"You do know what they say, Katniss," Peeta says, as we get into the car. My knees are pressed against the dashboard because we just barely managed to get everything into the car. He looks at me and smiles. "If your relationship can survive a trip to IKEA, it can survive anything."

"That's total bullshit," I say. "You know what comes now, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Now we have to assemble all this crap."

"Oh." His face falls.

Yep. _That's_ the ultimate test of a relationship.


End file.
